


Next in the Cycle

by ani_bester



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Marvel, Marvel/DCU
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-10
Updated: 2011-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-23 14:54:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/251565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ani_bester/pseuds/ani_bester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason talks to his sleeping Robin about what exactly it means to be a Robin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Next in the Cycle

**Author's Note:**

> A few years ago I'd been encouraged to write a Jason/Toro crossover. This is one of the few stand alone works that came out that.
> 
> Also, The focus is 100% on Jason, and this can be read without any familiarity with Marvel's Toro Raymond.

Sound came from all around the run down, one room, roach home. From above, Jason could hear the 'loving' couple, voices raised in combat as they expounded on their hatred for each other. Behind him, a baby noted the persistent fighting by adding shrill cries of it's own. It's mother punctuated every few minutes with a screamed 'Shut the fuck up." Jason didn't know if she meant the couple or the baby.

Probably both. He would. For all the good the walls did he might as well have invited the loving couple and the terrific mother into his own apartment.

Beside him, water dripped from the ceiling into a half full bucket. The dripping added a tip-tap sound that, for all its softness, was proving more annoying than the cries and shouts.

And then from the couch in front of him came the only sound that made Jason smile. Tom's mouth hang slightly open and as he inhaled, he sounded like a buzz saw. Jason would have poked Tom until he shifted his position and stopped the snoring. However, with the cacophony already in play, Jason didn't see the point in bothering his sleeping 'Robin'.

Tom snored again and Jason shook his head. He stared at Tom watching as red, green, and white light danced across Tom's features as the Christmas tree lights continued to flicker. Jason glanced at the little tree Tom had brought in. It had been such a Grayson gesture that Jason had at first wondered of the older Robin hadn't passed it along to Tom. But his meta was sentimental to bring a tree in all on his own.

Jason glanced back at Tom, who lay sprawled across the couch. One leg dangled off the edge and one arm was draped over his abdomen. He held a red blanket in his right hand, but it covered more of the floor than Tom. Jason stood and grabbed a tattered edge to spread the blanket back over Tom. As he tucked it in, Tom's eyes open and regarded him with a drowsy interest.

"Just taking care of you," Jason murmured.

Tom smiled and breathed a sound that might have been thanks before falling back asleep. Jason went back to his chair and pulled a cigarette and studied the ghost of the smile on Tom's face.

He liked Jason taking care of him. It was why, in the end, Jason had decided he would make a good Robin.

"I worried, you know," Jason murmured. "You don' look it, but you're old enough to be my grandfather . . . and a meta. Two big no's for a Robin."

Tom didn't stir. Jason leaned back in the threadbare green armchair and watched red light wash over Tom's face, followed by green.

"But then," he continued, "you listen to me. More over you do what I say so that I keep you around." Jason smiled. "You need me, and you know, I think that's the most important thing there is for a Robin." Jason took a long drag on his cigarette and thought of Dick and Tim, both so eager for Bruce's praise, even when they pretended to be on their own.

"That's why I was wrong to try and recruit them, huh. They're Bruce's. Always will be. He shaped them for years." Jason shook his head then slammed the cigarette butt against the coffee table and ground it into it was less than a stump in his fingers. "Looking back, I was probably lucky to die, you know, or I'd still be his little Robin too."

Jason exhaled smoke and looked at his sleeping Robin,. "But you, you needed someone to look after you in this big scary city, didn't you. Some one to follow." He grinned. "And I give you that."

And that, after all, was what being a Robin was all about. Following. Following, letting The Batman shape you into what he wanted because you couldn't find your own shape.

"Yeah," Jason murmured, "I think I was fucking luck to die."

He looked at Tom one last time before stretching out in his chair.

"Night," he murmured, running his boot along the leg that hung over the couch. "Training in the morning," Jason muttered as he closed his eyes and let the din lull him to sleep.


End file.
